Condors take to the classroom

ESCONDIDO -- Quietly roosting in imitation trees, a group of
grey-headed, 6-month-old condor chicks sat in the morning sun on
Thursday as an older bird, majestic with its rouge-tinted head, sat
indifferently a few feet away.

The condors seemed a bit shy, but with time, the older condor is
expected to teach the fledglings adult behaviors typical of condors
in the wild, including the pecking order when feeding on a carcass
and how to interact with others of their kind.

The four fledglings are the first group of puppet-reared chicks
at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in Escondido to be integrated
with a mentor bird in the hope of releasing the young ones into the
wild, said Mike Mace, bird curator at the Wild Animal Park. The
chicks were placed with the mentor condor last week and the plan is
for them to be ready for release in the spring.

"It's working exactly as we expected," Mace said. "We are
looking forward to the spring when those four are released."

In March, the park built the condor release pen, fondly called a
"condor classroom," in order to take further steps to support these
carrion-feeders, which have been on the endangered species list
since 1967.

Using the information and social behaviors they learn from an
elder condor, fledglings will be better prepared to enter and
survive the wild, Mace said.

Located in a remote area of the Wild Animal Park, the classroom
is designed so that the birds can't see park visitors or staff
members. Keeping people out of sight prevents the birds from
bonding with or being influenced by humans -- also the primary
reason for raising the chicks using condor puppets operated by park
staffers.

"Great pains are taken by the staff to always hide behind a
screen," Mace said.

Not all California condor chicks at the Wild Animal Park are
raised by condor puppets. In fact, for every set of chicks that are
raised by a puppet, another is raised by a true parent.

In order to speed up reproduction for the condors, which
typically spend two years raising a single chick before reproducing
again, the park staff takes the first egg, causing the bird to lay
another egg within 45 days. One of those chicks will then be raised
by a puppet, the other by the natural mother.

The process is called "double clutching." The four chicks now in
the condor release pen are a result of this process, Mace said.

A group associated with the park, Conservation Research
Endangered Species, also monitors the behavior of the birds to
determine if they are good candidates for release.

The Wild Animal Park's efforts are one part of a larger program
called the California Condor Breeding Program, which began in 1982
to bolster the dwindling population of California condors in the
world.

At that time, only 22 California condors existed.

Other conservation breeding centers for the program are at the
Los Angeles Zoo, the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise,
Idaho, and the Oregon Zoo.